Obituary of John P Desmond

JOHN PATRICK DESMOND
Born December 22,1944
Departed February 23, 2021

PROFESSIONAL LIFE
The photo of John in the clouds appeared in an Oregon business magazine story about John’s primary life’s work, the head-up guidance system.  It is no exaggeration to claim that John and the Flight Dynamics team he led significantly improved aviation safety worldwide.  He forged long term friendships with customers around the globe and, through perseverance and tenacity, took the business from a start up to over $50 M in annual revenues. After retiring, John spent eight years creating a lightening detecter and locater and set up a new company, Stormtron. <Stormtronics.com >  His product is nearly ready to market.
John was a member of the Oregon Venture Fund, which supports high-tech start ups, and served on the board and helped launch one of those start-ups, Bigleaf Networks.


PLANES, TRAINS AND AUTOMOBILES

It started with raising money to support a soapbox venture and building a 50’ antenna behind his home in Woodstock, Illinois to communicate with people at the South Pole using his ham radio. His curiosity about all things scientific continued throughout his life; John valued learning above almost everything else.  He received a scholarship and graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from the University of Illinois. John held an amateur radio license, a multi—engine instrument rating and recently taught himself new programming languages.  Always with a book, or working physics and math problems to ease his mind, John read history, philosophy and science. Between chemotherapy treatments, John worked in his study, listening to the waterfall he had built with his son and grandsons, operating a recently installed model train and brushing up his Morse Code.  As part of his commitment to learning and providing others with opportunity, John established a scholarship fund at the University of Illinois for electrical engineering and at Clatsop Community College on the Oregon coast for technical training in marine transportation.

FAMILY

John and I were married for 24 years.  We loved to travel, have friends to dinner, go to plays—all cut short due to his illness and covid. During an eleven month break from treatment, in 2018 we went to Tulum, Mexico, pictured above, and to Paris and Guadeloupe.  As partners, from 1998 on we tended a vacation home/apartment building in Gearhart, OR—making improvements and creating a garden and happy memories of summers on the beach.  John stayed close to his family, though spread far and wide. He was especially proud of his sons and grandchildren and he will live on in their memory and their lives.

The greater Desmond clan includes:
His son August, Nashville TN;
son Michael and his wife Angie and their children, Bella, James, Josh—his wife Bri and great-grandchildren Olivia and baby Juliette—all in Lakeside, AZ. —and Kyle and his wife Brianna, Phoenix, AZ.

Stepdaughter Lauren Sullivan and her husband James, grandchildren Nikayla, Brooke and Carter in Denver, CO.  Step-daughter Andrea Murray and husband Philip Klinkner, soon to have their first child in St. Louis, MO.

Sisters Mickey Fortin, Woodstock, IL; JoAnne Sieck and husband Jim, Harvard, IL; Eileen Brubaker and husband Dave, Yuba City, CA and brother Jim and wife Kerri, Oceanside, CA.
Add to that 15 nieces and nephews and a score of great nieces and nephews.

MEMORIES AND CONTRIBUTIONS
A sincere thank you to the friends and family who provided support during John’s 3 years, 9 months struggle with pancreatic cancer. If you have memories of John you would like to share, please send them to Jennifer.desmond@comcast.net

Contributions can be made to your local food bank or to the Oregon Foodbank, https://www.oregonfoodbank.org/give/individuals/honor-someone/

Lastly, John kept this framed poem on his bedside table for as long as I can remember, perhaps a statement of what mattered most to him:

“One cannot build from refrigerators, politics, credit statements, and crossword puzzles.
That is impossible.
Nor can anyone exist for any length of time without poetry, without color, without love.”
                                                Antoine de Saint- Exupery, French poet and pioneering aviator